Hmm.
Between the Monaco GP and the Spanish GP, Williams announced they had brought David Coulthard in to replace Senna, with Nigel Mansell deputising at those races which did not overlap with his IndyCar commitments.

That too.

Plus they had to find a way to squeeze Ol' Nig's tookus into that skinny Williams. Our boy had been enjoying steak dinners in the heartland.

Maybe some AVS members can get together for a drink in Montreal. My wife and I will be there starting Wednesday before the race. Thursday AM the pit area is open to the public. PM me if interested. I also sent a PM to Morpheo who lives in Montreal.

Marco Mattiacci, the new team principal of Ferrari, has a good idea of the scale of the job he needs to do in order to return Ferrari to winning ways and it isn’t going to happen overnight.

Ferrari will have a major aerodynamic update package on the car for Montreal, as it traditionally does and a significant step on the power unit, which has been a major handicap on the straights this year.

If this doesn’t bring the team a good step closer to Mercedes, then it will inevitably begin to commit more resources to the engine side and to wind tunnel time to 2015, where it can make a difference.

But Mattiacci’s task is long term. Ferrari has lost the winning habit and he needs to recreate the culture that existed there under Jean Todt.

Current Ferrari technical director James Allison said at the weekend that Ferrari has no shortage of talented people, but the environment needs to be right for them to take risks. He blames a culture of fear of failure and unrealistic deadlines for Ferrari’s failure to innovate in recent years,

“There is a wealth of talent at Ferrari, the experience and quality of the people on the technical side is a match for any team. It is a question of giving them the encouragement to actually go off and do more unusual things and then have the time to look at them and know that if they fail it’s OK because there’s still time to put a back-up plan in place and for that to work,” he said.

“Creativity and originality will only come if you set out to allow the engineers in your organisation the space and the time to do that.

“If you force them to operate with their back against the wall, up against deadlines that are very tight, then there is no time for them to think about how they might approach something differently.”

In Monaco the talk was once again of Ferrari’s all out attempt to hire Adrian Newey away from Red Bull. Again, this is not going to happen overnight.

“I remain committed to Red Bull for the foreseeable future,” Newey said in Monaco.

But the foreseeable future is only the next year or two. Beyond that, anything is possible if the right circumstances are put in place.

Newey has been with Red Bull for seven years and historically that is about the length of time he was with Williams and McLaren before moving on to seek fresh challenges.

Newey is well aware of Ferrari, what it stands for and the prestige of the brand. He owns, drives and races Ferraris. He has no ideological barrier to working for Ferrari in Italy, merely to its reputation for being a turbulent environment.

He has said that previous attempts to hire him – of which there were many – came at the wrong time in his family life.

Now divorced with children who have mostly grown up, 55 year old Newey is at a different moment in his life. He has a new partner, Amanda Smerczak. His son is a keen kart racer and Italy is the hotbed of karting.

Anecdotally, one has the impression that Newey is indeed looking around at the moment, considering what to do next and he has bought himself some thinking time with his Monaco statement.

Ferrari is believed to be offering Newey a spectacular package which would give him, in addition to a massive salary comparable with many F1 drivers, the opportunity to be across Le Mans project, maybe even have a hand in designing a road going super car, but above all to make Ferrari the fastest F1 car out there.

All of this will be very tempting but what Newey needs is certainty that he and his department would be protected; from politics, from internal pressures and interference from FIAT and other outside forces and would be allowed to get on with their work.

He would also need a free rein to know that all the resources he needs are at his disposal, no questions asked. Mattiacci has been given a freedom previous Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali never had – to be able to sign things off quickly himself, without needing lengthy approvals. He has things set up more like the Todt regime in that sense. The team management can react more quickly and be more dynamic.

Newey works best in a protected environment and it is the thing he will be most concerned about at Ferrari, given its culture and politics. Todt managed to ring fence the team and was the strong man holding back the inside and outside forces to allow the team and its engineering innovators to thrive.

Mattiacci must reproduce that, and convince Newey very soon that he can do so, or the project will have little chance of succeeding.

Red Bull is allegedly flirting with a change of engine supplier, according to reports in Germamy.

Helmut Marko has told Sport Bild that the reigning world champion team will assess the progress made by current supplier Renault at the time of their home Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring in June.

“We have to decide on our future engine partner then,” he said.

A partnership with Mercedes has already been ruled out, and becoming a customer of another arch-rival, Ferrari, must also be seen as highly unlikely.

Honda is returning to Formula 1 as McLaren’s works partner next year, with Red Bull magnate Dietrich Mateschitz recently saying he did not want to simply be a customer of the Japanese manufacturer.

There might be another way. Red Bull already has close commercial ties to Volkswagen, the German carmaker giant.

“Volkswagen is already in other racing series, with engines that are similar to Formula 1 technology,” hinted Marko.

Charlie Whiting wants to prevent a repeat of the Monaco qualifying scandal.

Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have fallen out spectacularly, after Hamilton accused his Mercedes teammate of making a deliberate mistake in the dying minutes of their fight for pole on Saturday.

The FIA looked into whether Rosberg triggered the yellow flags on purpose in order to ruin the sister Mercedes' run, but found no evidence of a foul.

Many, including Monaco steward Derek Warwick, found it hard to believe Rosberg 'did a Schumacher'.

"I know there are conspiracy theories," he told the Daily Mail, "but you will not find a more honest driver in grand prix racing than Nico."

Even so, the FIA investigated the incident for hours.

"It was not black and white," said Warwick. "It took a long time. We wanted to be sure and thorough.

"I have been around a long time and seen people try to pull the wool over my eyes. Did I have doubts in my mind? Of course I did. But he gave me the answers I needed," he added.

But Hamilton suggested he saw data late on Saturday that convinced him that Rosberg had acted maliciously.

The FIA was not convinced, concluding from detailed telemetry that Rosberg braked only 10 metres later than he had on his pole lap, and was travelling only 6kph faster, according to Germany's Auto Motor und Sport.

FIA race director Whiting said: "And both Mercedes drivers braked 8 metres later at Ste Devote than they had before. They were just going flat out."

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff commented: "We will never know if Nico acted deliberately or not. But we give him absolutely 100 per cent the presumption of innocence.

"When you are pushing to the maximum, mistakes can happen."

Nonetheless, Whiting has an idea that would stop this sort of controversy from recurring in the future.

He said: "Why don't we extend qualifying by one minute when a yellow flag is shown in the last three minutes?

This one gets a thumbs up from me, it's a no brainer to stop any hint of shenanigans here. The last qualifying period is very short anyway, what's the harm?

I was thinking about something similar, to allow drivers that run up on the yellow flag to get another lap. But perhaps the driver that caused the yellow does not? Obviously if someone bins the car, they are done, but simply running off and then getting back on the track? That would in essence give them a do-over, which I don't think should be the case.

There would be some wrinkles to work out, but it would attempt to address the aggrieved. We can call it the "Lewis is a whiner" rule. :-)

Then again, is this REALLY a big problem that needs additional regulation?

Thinking about this a little more, what happens if a driver gets balked on his hot lap? The stewards investigate, and if found at fault, the impeding driver gets penalized. But the aggrieved driver gets nothing.

Does that mean that they would have to cover drivers causing yellows as well as drivers that impede on track? And how do you fix that? Does the entire grid get an extended quali, or just the balked driver?

To me this is a slippery slope, not to mention a knee jerk reaction amplified by the Brit press. I would wager that if Rosberg or any other non-Brit driver had been on the short end of the stick, there would be little outcry to fix anything. But when the Golden Child appears to get screwed, WE MUST ACT. :-)

Gene Haas will reportedly not be fielding cars on the Formula 1 grid in 2015.

“It’s already June so it’s just seven months away and the timing issues are starting to get real crazy,” Haas told Autoweek.com. “We have a list of names [of people we want to hire], but the problem is a lot of times they’re already working for somebody and they can’t get out of their contracts for three to six months so there’s a lot of those contractual issues that have to be resolved before someone can come over.”

Haas has been attempting to put together a 200-strong workforce and the Stewart-Haas racing shop in Kannapolis, N.C., has undergone ginormous expansion.

That being said, many unanswered questions have arisen as to what the official engine and chassis suppliers for the car will be and who would be hired to drive. Recent speculation has hinted that Ferrari may be the engine supplier.

Haas also met with chassis-maker Dallara during his time in Indianapolis.

“They’re all very interested in helping us,” said Haas. ”I think they are looking at it as a good long-time partnership, but it just comes down to you have to order things, and it takes time to order things and get things scheduled.

“It just seems that it’s taking longer to accomplish what we wanted to do than we thought.”

MercedesNico Rosberg 1 - Lewis Hamilton 5
Race: Rosberg
Nico won because he started from pole. He started from pole because he fraudulently claimed pole on Saturday when the stewards should have sent him to the back of the grid. What is slightly bewildering is the fact that so many people think it might have been an accident. "But the stewards believed his side of the story?" is the cry from Rosberg's supporters (and Lewis's detractors). The race stewards saw nothing wrong in Nelson Piquet Junior's deliberate crash at the Singapore Grand Prix and we now know that was about as genuine as Flavio Briatore's love of motorsport.

If the circumstances weren't suspicious enough already, if Nico's hands sawing at the wheel to create the situation weren't dodgy enough, why did he stick his car in reverse? You'd think if you genuinely messed up the Mirabeau corner you'd want to get out of everyone else's way, not rejoin the circuit when cars were coming though. It's not as though there was two minutes left on the clock and he could get another lap in, it was down to zero time.

On Sunday I didn't realise that the forbidden engine mode that Lewis used in Spain had been used by Rosberg in Bahrain. Lewis apologised for Spain, Rosberg apologised in Monaco; for the qualifying mistake, but not the deceit.

Does this matter very much? Yes, to Lewis. Because he's gone into his I'm-above-all-this-but-I'm-still-obviously-sulking mode. It makes F1 compelling viewing right now. Four races ago they were euphoric just to get a 1-2 - now, as they wait to go out to the podium, it's like the outer office of a solicitor's firm before a preliminary divorce hearing.

Safety standards have improved a lot since 1982 so maybe we don't need to worry about their safety should they come together on track. But Gilles Villeneuve was carrying a burning sense of injustice with him as he went to the Belgian Grand Prix in Zolder, having, he thought, been cheated out of the San Marino Grand Prix win by Didier Pironi.

Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo 4 - Sebastian Vettel 2
Race: Vettel
Ricciardo qualified in front of Vettel again to make it 5-1 in the Saturday battles. Vettel was hampered all through qualifying with a faltering ERS. Come the race and Daniel's poor start would normally have relegated him to a long afternoon in fifth place. Vettel got the jump but a blown turbo put an end to his afternoon.

FerrariFernando Alonso 5 - Kimi Raikkonen 1
Race: Raikkonen
It was no fault of Kimi's that he got tagged by Max Chilton trying to unlap himself behind the Safety Car (a rule that many in the sport don't like). He was heading for his first Ferrari podium on his return, but the minute he had to stop again, that was that. Apart from Alonso's stellar Q3 lap Kimi has been getting a lot closer to Fernando and this could well be a battle that starts to generate friction

McLarenJenson Button 4 - Kevin Magnussen 2
Race: Magnussen
Jenson was generous to say that the only reason he got past his team-mate in the race was because he was having ERS issues, having been resoundingly outqualified by him on Saturday. Magnussen's performance in Monaco was only blotted by allowing Hulkenberg to shoulder his way past him into Portier and guarding the line into Loews will become a priority from 2015 onwards.

WilliamsValtteri Bottas 2 - Felipe Massa 4
Race: Bottas
It's very hard to make comparisons when one of the drivers hasn't been able to qualify properly because they've been sideswiped by a Caterham. Bottas has been a consistent finisher in his short F1 career but there was nothing he could do when his engine gave up - a rarity for a Mercedes unit. Felipe Massa had predicted a crash-strewn principality before the race and admitted afterwards he got it very wrong. It was car issues that sidelined so many in Monaco.

Toro RossoJean-Eric Vergne 2 - Daniil Kvyat 4
Race: Vergne
JEV outqualified an impressive Kvyat and kept ahead of him at the start. But it must be a concern for the whole Red Bull group that they lose three out of four Renault engines over a race weekend. They produced a fabulous qualifying performance with all four Red Bull/Toro Rosso cars in the top ten, but at the rate they are losing car parts, the grid penalties are soon going to be racking up.

Force India
Nico Hulkenberg 4 - Sergio Perez 2
Race: Hulkenberg
A tricky one because Perez was very close to Hulkenberg when Jenson hooked his wheel and spun him on the opening lap. However Nico's race was assured, with a gem of an overtaking move on Magnussen, which will make the Best Overtaking Move of the Season tapes. (If they had tapes any more).

SauberEsteban Gutierrez 4 - Adrian Sutil 2
Race: Gutierrez
Sutil and Gutierrez both threw it away. Sutil's mistake was seemingly a rookie one (braking for the nouvelle chicane) and Gutierrez looked to have spun while failing to manage his torque. There were distant echoes of Michael Schumacher throughout the weekend and Esteban spinning where he did brought one of them. Instead of winning points for being the better of the two drivers he gets them for being the least worst. Paul Di Resta would surely be doing a better job than Adrian Sutil.

Caterham
Marcus Ericsson 1 - Kamui Kobayashi 5
Race: Kobayashi
Kamui was leading the new team battles for so long, but ultimately couldn't keep Bianchi at bay. Had Kamui made the move that Jules did on him, we might have been saying "oh that's typical kobay-bashi", it was brutal. Jules was very fortunate that Kamui didn't turn right in on him and how they got that move done with a minimum loss of carbon fibre is beyond me.

MarussiaMax Chilton 3 - Jules Bianchi 3
Race: Bianchi
Jules needed to do something to impress because his season had been lacklustre up to this point. The fact that it's still only 3-3 with an affable, journeyman F1 driver, is proof of that. Monaco has got everyone talking about him in the right way again,.

In an attempt to cut the cost of running a Formula One team over the course of the year, in-season testing could be banned from 2015...

Although the FIA and the F1 teams are still involved in discussions about other cost-cutting measures - like the reduction of the number of personnel allowed and the expansion of parc ferme rules - a report by Autosport suggests a revamp of the testing regulations is on the cards.

The report adds that a number of proposals are being considered, including the ban of in-season testing and the reduction of pre-season testing sessions from three to two.

This year, in-season tests after the Bahrain and Spanish Grands Prix have already taken place, with further sessions planned after the British and Abu Dhabi races.

While some of the teams were satisfied with the outcome of the Bahrain and Spain tests, others feel they were an unneeded, additional expense that is a cause of stress for their employees.

Pre-season testing is also unlikely to take place outside the European mainland, with Spain's Jerez circuit the favourite to host both the rumoured 2015 tests.

James Allison, the Ferrari Technical Director, believes changes to the testing regulations are a more effective way to cut costs than simply changing technical rules.

"One of things we've said is that in general the technical regulations have not been the happiest hunting ground for saving margins," Allison told Autosport during last week's Monaco GP.

"Sporting regulations have been generally more effective in that, so if there's an amount of effort to be put into discussing stuff, probably the biggest amount of money will be saved if we focus our effort on the sporting side.

"Saying that, there always are areas on the technical side where you can save chunks of money. I think it would be wrong to say these things are a joke.

"There are a large number of proposals on the table, they just need to be talked about until the ones which are a joke fall off the table and the ones which aren't stay on the table, and hopefully the questions of sustainability are resolved."

His McLaren counterpart Eric Boullier isn't entirely convinced, though, and suggested that too many changes to the rules over a short period of time could have the opposite effect.

"We have to be careful. The more change we do to the regulations, the more money we could potentially spend adjusting our business to the new rules," Boullier said.

"We know trying to keep the regulations stable over a few years is the best way to make sure we are saving money.

"At the same time, there are a couple of big discussions about the format of the weekend, the price of the engine, restriction in the windtunnel, where we could potentially save more money.

"This is what we are trying to agree for the future, but not going into any crazy decisions, because we could produce the inverse of what we want to do."

I can understand the desire to keep costs down....all businesses do.
The problem with this is The Big Hitters (who have all the political power) aren't genuinely interested if they are making $$$.
The mid-runners want to challenge for podiums, but don't have the budgets necessary to make this happen regularly.
What do you do?

I can understand the desire to keep costs down....all businesses do.
The problem with this is The Big Hitters (who have all the political power) aren't genuinely interested if they are making $$$.
The mid-runners want to challenge for podiums, but don't have the budgets necessary to make this happen regularly.
What do you do?

It's a tough nut to crack.

If F1 is to remain F1, which mean constructors are required to build their own cars, AND it is desirable for those cars to be cutting edge/top of the heap, then I don't know how costs can be regulated. I just don't see a simple budget restriction as viable, since there will always be ways to cheat on what is spent.

There will always be teams that have the means to spend whatever is required to be champions. It is just not a poor man's sport.

If F1 is to remain F1, which mean constructors are required to build their own cars, AND it is desirable for those cars to be cutting edge/top of the heap, then I don't know how costs can be regulated. I just don't see a simple budget restriction as viable, since there will always be ways to cheat on what is spent.

There will always be teams that have the means to spent whatever is required to be champions. It is just not a poor man's sport.

I'm afraid you're right.
Although I know LeMans teams don't have an enforced budget, I don't know whether Indy Car or NASCAR or other series has restrictions.